


Walking with a Ghost

by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)



Category: Tru Calling
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:48:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/pseuds/Sandrine%20Shaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She thought she'd seen the last of Andrew Webb, until he tracked her down, three days after the night he didn't die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking with a Ghost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/gifts).



> Written as a Christmas fic for Hecate and [originally posted in the 2007 Yuletide challenge](http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/36/walkingwith.html).

Sometimes, the hardest thing was to stop wondering what became of the people she saved. Maybe, in time, it would get easier... it would be routine, just a job she wouldn't take home with her after it was done. If seeing Nick dead on one of these tables a second time within 24 hours had taught her anything, it was that she couldn't let this get too personal. She wasn't a doctor – she didn't do follow-ups. It didn't stop her from thinking about them: whether Rebecca would ever be happy, or if Samantha would grow old and lead a good life, or how Andrew would deal with his wife's betrayal. But Tru didn't expect to ever see any of them ever again. 

She certainly thought she'd seen the last of Andrew Webb, until he tracked her down, three days after the night he didn't die. 

She was leaving the morgue in the early hours of morning and crossing the parking lot, twilight already curling around the horizon in violet hues, when someone behind her spoke. 

"You're not an easy person to find."

Startled, she jumped slightly, and turned around to find Andrew leaning against a car. 

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you," he added; except he didn't sound sorry at all, and he certainly didn't look it. Arms casually crossed in front of him and a cocky half-smile on his face, he was a picture of smug satisfaction.

"Well, then, maybe you shouldn't be paying people surprise visits in badly lit parking lots at night." She took a step towards him, swallowing sudden uneasiness. Never mind the fact that she'd faced him three times before; it would never stop being weird seeing someone who'd been a dead body on a morgue table standing in front of her as a living, breathing person. There was always a part of her brain that couldn't compute the idea. And if she sounded a bit harsher than normally, it was as much because of the inner voice that kept insisting, _He should be dead_ , as it was because of his ungentle ambush. "What do you want?"

"How about a couple of answers?" His smile didn't reach his eyes. "You know, I've been thinking about that night ever since. Sarah had everybody fooled: your brother, me... How did you know that she would try and shoot me that night?"

Tru tensed up. There was really no way of answering that question to his satisfaction, so she didn't even try. "I just… knew it would happen." 

"Not good enough."

"Well, it's gotta be." And now her own smile was as fake as his, because she was rapidly growing tired of the interrogation. The conversation wouldn't, couldn't lead anywhere. He was asking questions he wasn't prepared to hear the answer for – no more than she was ready to tell him. It was a pointless exercise, and she was tired and wanted nothing more than to get home and curl up in her bed. 

She stepped back, ready to turn around and leave, but his hand clamped down on her upper arm, holding her in place.

"I think you owe me some kind of explanation." His tone was soft and low, but there was an underlying insistence that added the barest hint of a threat – something that acutely reminded her of their second encounter on the boat when he'd had her momentarily scared of him. And even though his grip on her arm wasn't tight enough to hurt her, there was enough pressure behind it to remind her that he could. And this, she thought, this was precisely why Sarah had been able to fool everyone and paint Andrew as the villain in her little game: he wasn't what Sarah had made him out to be, but he wasn't a nice guy either. Tru knew she should have been repelled, but something in her revelled in the challenge.

Raising her chin a fraction, she met his eyes unblinking. 

"I saved your life. I don't think I _owe_ you anything." She pointedly looked down to where his fingers were still wrapped around her arm and then back up to his face, a firm, wordless demand for him to _let go_.

He did, his fingers slowly unclenching and his arm falling away from her. 

It was he who took a step backwards this time, and when he looked at her, he actually appeared uncertain for a moment, almost apologetic, the anger drained out of him as if holding on to it had been taking too much effort. He rubbed his forehead and frowned, and all of a sudden, he just looked unhappy and as tired as she felt, and there was nothing threatening about him at all. "Look, sorry about that. You're right, you don't owe me anything. I just— the woman I used to love tried to _kill_ me three days ago, and I'm just trying to make sense of all this, okay?"

"Okay," she said warily, frowning. It wasn't like she didn't get it. He'd probably had a shitty few days, and dealing with the fall-out of what happened, she imagined, wasn't easy. "None of this is my fault, though."

"I know. I didn't mean to imply it was. And I never properly thanked you for saving my life either, which probably makes me the rudest guy ever." His smile was warmer now, more sincere, and infinitely more charming – disarmingly so. "How about I make it up to you and invite you for a drink?"

She pushed the stab of attraction she felt back into a far corner of her subconscious. It didn't matter that his offer held a certain appeal. His objective was probably to question her some more about what had happened the other night, and she wasn't in the mood for that kind of small talk. Figuring it was a polite way to decline, she said, "I think all the bars are already closing."

He shrugged and smiled. "I have drinks on the boat. As you know."

And this, this was a really bad idea because he was inviting her into his home, at night, for a drink, and it didn't take a genius to add things up. She barely knew him, and the little she did know, she couldn't say she liked. He wasn't even her type. She liked her guys nice and gentle and sweet, like Nick and Mark. Except Nick was dead, and Mark had turned out to be a lot less nice than he pretended to be. At least with Andrew, she knew what she was getting into, and Tru felt stirred by him in a way that got under her skin. Before she could change her mind again, against better judgement, she heard herself saying, "I could use a drink."

A drink became two, and he surprised her by not resuming his earlier questioning. The boat looked different in the darkness – calmer, more inviting, but maybe that was just because the photos of Sarah were gone and because this time, Tru wasn't here on a false premise. 

When he reached for her glass to set it aside, she could have sworn that she felt the kiss before his lips found hers. She was a little tipsy, the alcohol a pleasant warm curl in the pit of her stomach, and she locked her arms around his neck and let him carry her to the bed, soft white satin sheets spread out under her and him above her, shirtless, his lips trailing down the curve of her jaw. She arched up against him, her fingernails leaving angry red lines on his arms, and he hissed against her skin and pulled her into another kiss. 

"Fuck," he muttered, breathless, "I've wanted to do this ever since I saw you with the camera on the pier." So had she, she realized, even though she had never really allowed herself to think about it before.

She started to pull at his pants until finally, they were both naked, and when she rolled them around and climbed onto his lap and sank down, he was right _there_ , ready to meet her halfway. She closed her eyes and blindly sought his lips, kissing him until she was light-headed and his hands on her body were the only thing holding her up. And for the first night in weeks, she didn't fall asleep worrying whether tomorrow would be another one of those days that happened twice.

When she woke up, he was still asleep and the clock on the bedside table told her that it was almost noon. Gingerly dislodging the arm curved around her, she sat up and swung her legs off the bed. The light that streamed through the window was wan, hinting at a rainy day – the kind of weather that would have had her creep right back under the covers at home. But she wasn't at home now, and she knew she shouldn't stay. 

Yet, she sat, motionless, a statue sitting on the edge of the bed until, what could have been seconds or hours later, she heard the sheets rustling behind her and knew with a certainty that he had woken up. And sure enough, there was his voice, a soft, sleepy, "Good morning," and a pair of lips pressing a dry kiss against the back of her shoulder. She tensed.

"I work in the morgue."

A pause, then he said, slowly, "I know."

She kept talking because she knew if she didn't press on now, she would stop herself, and she owed him this much, at least. "Sometimes, people— dead people wake up and ask for my help. I don't know how and I don't know why, but that's how it goes. The bodies come in, they ask for my help, and then the day restarts and I try to stop them from getting killed." Surprisingly, she found it easier to tell him than it had been to try and explain all of this to Harrison. 

The pause was longer this time, and when he finally said something, his tone was cautious and heavy with disbelief. "Right." 

She couldn't exactly blame him. "You think I'm crazy."

"Actually... yes." He fell silent for a second, two, three, then added lightly, "But then, I thought you were crazy before you mentioned talking to dead people and reliving days, so it doesn't really make a difference."

"Don't," she said. Her voice sounded wrong even to her own ears: too dead and harsh and broken.

"Don't what?"

"Don't make this so easy. It can't be so easy."

His finger lazily traced invisible lines on her back. "Why not?" he asked, and suddenly she couldn't take it anymore: the gentleness, the intimacy, the possibility of future mornings like this one.

She jumped up, and turned to face him. "Because I know what you look like when you're dead. Because whenever I look at you now, I can't shake that image off. And that's why this can't go on."

When she bent down to retrieve her clothes, he reached out and grabbed her wrist. "I'm alive now," he said, intently, his gaze steadily holding hers. "I don't know if there's any part of that little story of yours that's true – it sounds almost too absurd to be made up. But you know what? I think, either way, talking to the living scares you more than talking to the dead."

"I'm not scared."

The corners of his mouth turned up, his smile lazy and wicked and challenging. He leaned in. "Prove it," he whispered against her lips.

End.


End file.
